Dungeons and Dragons

Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves’ opening weekend has reflected just how appreciated this movie is. Dungeons and Dragons is a hilarious and unexpectedly emotional adventure movie that was true to its source material. There have been many attempts at a Dungeons and Dragons inspired movies but they all missed the mark because they were made by people who had clearly never played the RPG. Most of the past attempts are campy, but not in a good way. They also didn’t have the budget of the current attempt. Honor Among Thieves makes D&D fans proud. Nerds and normies alike will enjoy this funny, adventure film.

The casting was stunningly perfect, Chris Pine as our party leader and bard was very fitting. He’s got the perfect amount of charm and stupid to win over audiences. Michelle Rodriguez is perfect in everything, and should always be in all the movies. She was a friendly reminder that I am in fact bisexual. I appreciate that as the muscle of the party that she was still allowed to have a romantic backstory and be a mother figure. Often strong hispanic women in the industry are either feminine and oversexualized OR strong and masculine. Never both so watching her be beautiful, and strong was incredible. ALSO Holga Kilgore is the most D&D name EVER. Sophia Lilis as Doric was adorable and badass. She had a quiet strength in her performance and the owlbear transformation to beat the shit out of the red wizard was a truly awesome scene. Justice Smith as Simon was phenomenal. He truly portrayed a wizard with bad rolls with a delightful amount of awkwardness. Rege-Jean Page as Xenk was just hilarious, a perfect paladin and a great addition to the story.

What drew Dungeons and Dragons fans the most was how true to lore the film was. The characterizations of the classes and characters were amazing. Particularly Edgin as a Bard and Xenk as a Paladin they were both as textbook as it gets. As were all the characters but those two really stuck out. The spells used were excellent, my favorite moment was the theatre when Simon accidentally used the wrong spell and anti-gravitied everyone in the room. It was a very classic moment and it was hilarious.

The most amazing thing about this movie is how well it balanced humor and heart. I think we all went in with realistic expectations as we do with an D&D campaign, we expected some fun and perhaps no plot at all. But we were met with a very well written campaign that had very funny moments as well as an actual story. The main focus was Edgin trying to get his daughter back after he got his wife killed when she was an infant. The way that he made up for all his lies to his daughter at the end of the movie was beautifully written.

Overall I think that the film was an incredible experience, I recommend it to both fans of Dungeons and Dragons the game as well as their far less nerdy friends. It is a family friendly adventure and truly is a film for everyone. I give the movie an 8.5 out of 10, docking it only for the reason that I promised that I would be harsher on my ratings this year. It is the best movie we have gone to see this year and I don’t see it dropping too far down on the overall movie ratings. Audiences, critics enjoy it and for once I agree with the general public.